The Columbus Code

THE

COLUMBUS

CODE

a Novel

a Novel

MIKE EVANS

Copyright © 2015 by Mike Evans

Published by Worthy Inspired, an imprint of Worthy Publishing Group, a division of Worthy Media, Inc., One Franklin Park, 6100 Tower Circle, Suite 210, Franklin, TN 37067.

WORTHY is a registered trademark of Worthy Media, Inc.

H
ELPING PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE HEART OF
G
OD

eBook available wherever digital books are sold.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931768

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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[email protected]

Published in association with Ted Squires Agency, Nashville, Tennessee

ISBN: 978-1-61795-484-9

Cover Design: Brand Navigation

Cover Photography: Dreamstime, iStock

Digital Illustration: Mike Chiaravalle

Printed in the United States of America
15 16 17 18 19
LBM
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To my son, Diego, that you may know the truth and be set free.

As I came of age, I heard rumors about lands lying to the west, on the far side of the Ocean sea.

I heard reports and stories about sightings . . . canoes washing up on the Azores . . . bodies of strange-looking people appearing ashore after storms. Many people who lived near the sea believed there were people and land farther to the west, in some uncharted place.

I heard sailors talk of their deep desire to sail to the west, to explore these stories, to see if land did indeed exist there. No soul ever did. Some had the idea that they could sail west, all the way round to the East—that perhaps they could open a more accessible route for trading with partners there.

The idea seemed good and right to me, Diego, yet some resisted . . .

—Christopher Columbus

Winters ran his hand over his damp upper lip. His nerves were on overdrive, jacked up on adrenaline and five cups of coffee. Raids used to be the thing that kept him from getting bored. He actually looked forward to them. But today dread was more the mindset than anticipation.

Time to do this thing. He pushed open the car door and stepped out. He could feel his hair stand up in the wind, even as short as he kept it. You could always count on wind in the Bay Area. Wind and hills and fog.

But today was sunny. Eye-burningly clear. Still nippy, though. There was always that chill in the air. Who was it, Mark Twain, who said the coldest winter he ever spent was the summer he spent in San Francisco? Winters grabbed his jacket from behind the seat, shrugged it on, and walked toward a black SUV parked farther up the street.

The neighborhood was situated not far from the East Bay. Most of the houses were built in the 1920s Craftsman style. Bungalows, really, although any of them could be sold for seven figures now. It was all about location.

Winters' hands felt tacky as he rubbed them together. In his twenty years in the Secret Service he'd participated in more clandestine raids,
more down and dirty arrests, more classified operations than he could remember. This one, though . . . He glanced around for the nearest bush in case his stomach rebelled.

The passenger door of the SUV swung open and Taylor Donleavy stepped out, sunglasses in place, shaved head oblivious to the wind. He was a computer forensics expert who spent most of his time in the Service's technology lab, immersed in a world of terabytes and programming code. Donleavy should have been the one ready to throw up in the shrubbery. But he looked the way Winters used to feel before this kind of operation—chomping at the proverbial bit but trying not to look like it.

“Did they show you the house?” Winters asked.

“Yeah.” Donleavy had a raspy voice. If he hadn't been a buddy, Winters would have called him a geek. Actually, he did.

“It's that one, right?” Donleavy gestured to a low, one-story bungalow four houses away, near the center of the block.

“Come on, Donleavy, don't point.”

Donleavy looked cluelessly at his index finger, then shrugged and went on. “Looks too peaceful, doesn't it?”

It
was
hard to believe that in that unassuming two-bedroom abode, half a dozen Russians had infiltrated the online transaction system for worldwide retailer Galliano's and had obtained millions of credit-card numbers and associated user information files. While the neighbors thought the Russians were making borscht and tending the roses, they were actually using day-trader software hacked from some low-budget investment firm to generate millions of small investment purchases. What the neighbors didn't know, a retired schoolteacher from Spokane did—or at least he got suspicious enough to file a complaint with the Secret Service.

“It's not gonna be peaceful on the inside,” Winters said close to
Donleavy's ear. “Just do your thing and get out. I know you're all hot after being part of this but—”

“I know. Seize the—”

“Shut up, Donleavy.” This was why Winters hated taking a non-agent on a raid. But he had to. Only somebody like Donleavy could make sure the computers were seized intact so the whole case wasn't a bust.

Another car door slammed across the street and Lonnie Smith joined them. Although he was an agent, he looked a lot less obtrusive than Donleavy in a plaid flannel over a green T-shirt and a Giants ball cap taming a mop of curly, prematurely gray hair.

“It's a go,” he said, grinning. Smith always smiled, no matter the circumstances. It stretched his gray mustache into an almost-grimace.

“You sure they're in there?” Winters said.

“Yeah. All eight of them.”

Winters tried not to let his eyes widen. “Eight? I thought there were only five.”

“Snipers have been in place since yesterday,” Smith said as if he were expanding the guest list for a dinner party. “They count eight.”

Winters began to sweat again—this time the icy, barely wet perspiration that paralyzes every muscle. “There can't be eight,” he said through his teeth. “I'm not ready for eight.”

Smith's mouth extended into a mirthless, white-toothed grin. “It's eight, buddy. If you can't handle it—”

“No, I can't! I
can't!
It's not what I signed up for!”

Winters thrust his hands forward, reaching for what, he didn't know. His heart raced and panic seized him at the thought of entering that
house, but his fingers grasped nothing except thin air and the pale light slitting between the slats of the bedroom blinds. After a moment, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to remember where he was, then collapsed back on the bed and pulled his pajamaclad knees into his chest. What was it now—fifteen nightmares since the raid? He wouldn't have counted them if Archer hadn't told him to. She'd also told him to report to her when he had another . . . what did she call them? Episodes? It was a dream, not a psychotic episode. And he wasn't calling her.

Winters glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. He was surprised the thing still worked, seeing as how it had awakened him every morning in
high school
and he was now forty-five. Mom never changed a thing.

It was only 6:40 a.m., which meant it was 3:40 in San Francisco. Dr. Archer wouldn't appreciate a call from Winters at this hour unless he was suicidal. Not that she hadn't questioned him about that possibility after every session for the last two months.

Besides, this day wasn't about him
possibly
dying. It was about Mom actually dying, which she'd done two days before without giving him, Ben, or Maria any warning. Three days ago she'd called to tell him not to forget Uncle David's eightieth birthday. Now he was waking up in his boyhood room on the day of her funeral.

“Yo, Johnny,” a husky voice called. “You awake?” That question was followed by a loud banging on the door.

“I am now,” Winters replied.

The door was forced open, the settling of the house over the last fifty-five years having rendered it jammed. His brother, Ben, younger by fifteen years, entered with his usual swagger. The kid still carried himself like the Bowie High football captain—head cocky, arms held out to the sides in half circles because they were too buff
to touch his ribs, blue eyes making sure everybody was looking at him.

“You were passed out when I got in last night,” Ben said.

“I wasn't ‘passed out.' I was asleep like normal people.” Winters threw back what covers were still in place after the dream and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Ben stepped forward, playfully batting at Winters' head. “No, man,” he quipped, “you're not normal people. You're Secret Agent Man. S. A. . . .”